56 THE FORMS OF WATEK IN 



should first pass through woods and pastures, then up 

 the steep hill-face with the Glacier des Bossons to our 

 right, to a rock known as the Pierre Pointue ; thence 

 to a higher rock called the Pierre VEchelle, because here 

 a ladder is usually placed to assist in crossing the 

 chasms of the glacier. At the Pierre PEchelle we 

 should strike the ice, and passing under the Aiguille du 

 Midi, which towers to the left, and which sometimes 

 sweeps a portion of the track with stone avalanches, we 

 should cross the Glacier des Bossons ; amid heaped-up 

 mounds and broken towers of ice ; up steep slopes ; over 

 chasms so deep that their bottoms are hid in darkness. 

 141. We reach the rocks of the Grands Mulets, which 

 form a kind of barren islet in the icy sea ; thence 

 to the higher snow-fields, crossing the Petit Plateau, 

 which we should find cumbered by blocks of ice. 

 Looking to the right, we should see whence they came, 

 for rising here with threatening aspect high above us 

 are the broken ice-crags * of the Dome du Goiite. The 

 guides wish to pass this place in silence, and it is just 

 as well to humour them, however much you may doubt 

 the competence of the human voice to bring the ice- 

 crags down. From the Petit Plateau a steep snow-slope 

 would carry us to the Grand Plateau, and at day-dawn 

 1 know nothing in the whole Alps more grand and 

 solemn than this place. 



* Named seracs from their resemblance in shape and colour to an inferior 

 kind of curdy cheese called by this name at Chamoimi. 



